The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell (22 page)

She stared at him, her huge eyes growing even rounder, searching his. “Edmund, do
ye know what ye mean to me? Do ye know that I love ye?”

“Aye, I do.”

“But my father—”

“Is responsible fer his own life, Amelia. D’ye think he would want ye to be unhappy
with a man who marries ye fer his own gain? If yer father loves ye, and I know he
does, he wants ye to be happy with a man who would give his life fer ye.”

When she seemed to be pondering it and said nothing else, he told her about the duke’s
letter and explained that they needed to convince him that they were sincere in their
convictions. At least until Darach returned with reinforcements.

“Trust me, love.”

When she nodded, doing as he asked without further question or quarrel, he wanted
to carry her to bed and thank her properly, but that too would have to wait. “From
the moment ye first looked at me,” he told her instead, “I knew my heart was lost.”

“As did I,” she whispered back, swiping away a tear.

Edmund smiled and kissed her, then set about to his task.

M
y lords!” Edmund shouted from the lowest parapet around the gatehouse an hour later,
when their time, according to Queensberry’s note, was up. “Is this who ye wait fer?”
Staying behind her, he shoved Amelia forward to present her to the men fifty feet
below.

Amelia looked down. She saw her uncle and fought a wave of guilt and regret. What
would he tell…her father? She saw John Bell standing off alone, to the right of the
men. She should have known he would come. When she found him, pale and gaunt amid
the others, she wanted to weep. Oh, what he must have gone through, worrying about
her while she was happily falling in love. She felt heavy with guilt, burdened with
sorrow over him. She had to speak to him. She had to let him know she was unharmed.

“Nae, it cannot be her,” Edmund continued behind her. “Fer my first note to ye clearly
stated that should the union take place, Miss Bell would die. Perhaps ye thought me
insincere.”

He drew the dull edge of his dagger against her throat. From below, her father shouted,
a woman screamed.

“My mother?” Amelia’s voice broke softly over the sudden silence. She found her below,
saddled on a horse beside Walter’s. What the hell was Millicent Bell doing here?

Amelia closed her eyes and leaned her head on Edmund, behind her. Her mother had come
to see with her own eyes what trouble her daughter had gotten herself into this time
so she could never let Amelia forget it. She’d let herself get kidnapped and held
for ransom, putting everyone in danger. She was a fool, her mother would tell her.
A shame to their family.

“Edmund, I…” She turned to tell him she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let her father
believe she was in so much danger, ready to be killed.

Her ankle twisted. She lost her balance and tumbled backward over the short wall.
Edmund grasped her hand in time so that she didn’t fall to her death.

She wished she had. Better death than tumbling headfirst, toes pointed heavenward,
skirts over her waist, and her hand clasped to Edmund’s between her bare knees…

Her misfortune had returned.

Only this time she realized how much worse it was when an arrow cut the air and landed
like with a sickening thud into Edmund.

He’d held on to her. He hadn’t let her go even when the arrow pierced his shoulder.
She wept while she tended to his wound. What were these men doing? How could they
be so foolish as to believe they could get out of this alive? How was she going to
leave him? She had to, for his sake and her father’s. Dear God, her father was here!
What would happen when Darach returned with more men? What if her father was killed?
What if Edmund was killed? She had to stop it.

“’Tis just a flesh wound, love. A scratch.” He took her shaky hand and kissed it.
“’Twas good fortune that I caught ye and good fortune that yer father’s arrow barely
hit me.”

Dear God, it was her father’s arrow. She still couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know
her father could even fire an arrow. “The sight of ye holding that dagger to my neck
must have been too much fer him. I’m sorry he shot ye. He isn’t usually—” She wiped
her eyes but it was no use. “If ye would have dropped me, the duke and my mother would
have blamed him and…” She couldn’t think of it. “And my mother…she is here to make
certain I’m returned and bring no shame to her.”

“Why do ye care what yer mother thinks, Amelia?” Sarah stood by the doorway, arms
folded across her chest, watching her friend. “She is and has always been a wretched
human bein’. Ye are nae longer her responsibility. Ye’re a grown woman who has been
sharin’ the bed of a Highlander and—”

“Sarah, please,” Amelia groaned, finishing up her work on Edmund and bandaging him
up.

“What, fer goodness sake?” Her friend stopped and came forward. “Ye could be carrying
his babe. Ye could—”

“Ye don’t think I know that?” Amelia ignored Edmund when he turned to smile at her.
“How selfish of us to bring a babe into this.”

“Nae, Amelia,” Edmund said firmly, rising to his feet and turning to take her in his
arms. “Don’t think that way. A babe between us will be a blessing, safe and sound
and happy in Camlochlin.” He kissed her and smiled against her mouth. “I need to get
back to the battlements and show yer uncle that I’m not harmed. We will speak of this
some more later, aye?”

She nodded, not really wanting to speak of anything at all anymore. She wasn’t going
back to Camlochlin with him and oh how it shattered her wretched heart. She wanted
a life with him more than anything. But too much was at stake. Even if her father
wasn’t involved, her uncle would never let Edmund take her. If she was with child…Oh,
saints help her, if she was with child hell would rain down on Queensberry House.

“Sarah,” she told her friend after he left. “When I think of never seeing him again,
never hearing him speak my name again, it makes my heart, nae, my soul, feel like
’tis dying.”

“Ye don’t have to leave him, dearest,” her friend said gently. “Ye can have the life
ye want. The life ye’ve always dreamed about. We can stay together, too, Amelia.”
Sarah took her hands. “I want to go to Skye with Luke…with ye.”

Amelia closed her eyes. “My uncle will never let him live. Does no one understand
that?”

“Amelia…”

But Amelia held up her palm when Sarah would have interrupted her. “I likened him
to David. I flirted with him and let him captivate me, despite being promised to another.
And now I’ve let myself fall in love with him and others will suffer fer it.”

“Ye cannot live yer life fer yer father,” Sarah insisted. “He wants ye to be happy
and ye’re happy with Edmund.”

She couldn’t tell Sarah her plans. Her friend would try to stop her. “I am,” she agreed
instead. And she was. She was happier than she had ever been before in her life. “But
I hate that my mother thinks me a fool. I hate that after everything else, I almost
fell to my death in front of her.”

“Yer mother is a miserable hag who would likely benefit from a stiff cock up her—”

“Sarah!”

“Well, ’tis the truth.”

“Not one that I wish to hear!”

“All right then.” Sarah smiled and moved in to kiss her cheek. “I’m going to change
into men’s clothing and then I’m going to the battlements. Ye’re to remain here.”

“Nae.” Amelia stood up. “I’m perfectly capable of going up there and not falling.”

Sarah passed her a doubtful look.

“We need it to appear as if we have more numbers than we do,” Amelia reminded her.
“Every head is important. I’m coming.”

But Sarah wouldn’t let her have her way. “I love ye, gel, and I’m not goin’ to watch
ye tumble over a wall twice as high as the one ye nearly fell from the first time.
I know how ye get when yer mother is about. Ye’re stayin’ here. Ye’re going to stay
here and decide once and fer all which path ye will choose fer yer life. A path with
Edmund and happiness, and at the rate ye both frolic in bed, a dozen bairns.” She
smiled when Amelia blushed to her roots. “Or a life with the chancellor, who is verra’
much like yer mother when it comes to the less privileged. Not to mention that dead
woman ye told me about. He will likely beat ye and make ye do all sorts of perverse
sexual things. We will lose each other. More important, ye will lose yer happiness
and everything else ye hold dear.”

Her words brought tears to Amelia’s eyes. She wiped them, opened her mouth, and then
shut it again. Sarah was right. She would lose it all if she left Edmund. But she
would lose much if she remained with him. She would lose her father and if her uncle
attacked, she would likely lose Edmund. She had to find a way to return to her father
and put an end to any further fighting.

She looked down and sniffed at Grendel at her feet. She sank to the floor next to
him and closed her arms around his neck. “What I am to do, dear friend? I love yer
father, but I love mine, too.” She sighed and kissed his scruffy cheek. “Ye’ll help
me, won’t ye?”

He lapped her face once and then resumed his panting.

“Ugh!” She wiped her face and stared at his disinterested profile while he kept his
eyes on the door.

“Go to him then.” She stood up and fell back into the settee. “And kiss him fer me.”

She buried her face in Grendel’s fur and wept when he returned to her and leaped onto
the settee and into her lap.

Darach’s good fortune put him in an especially pleasant mood on his way back to Ravenglade
just a pair of hours after he’d left it. That had to be why he hadn’t choked the breath
out of Janet Buchanan yet. He had met up with William and his sister on their way
to Ravenglade in answer to Edward’s invitation yesterday. When Darach explained that
the Duke of Queensberry and his entire garrison had arrived to take the castle and
claim it back for the throne, William agreed to follow him back.

“Nae, wait fer me here,” Darach had told him. “I’ll return in a day or two with plenty
of men at my back.”

“Yer kin could be dead by then,” William argued. “We’ll go now. I’ll send my most
trusted men to gather the other clans.”

That was when he told Darach about the tunnels. Hell, there were tunnels! The Buchanans
had started digging them shortly after Darach’s grandparents left Ravenglade. They’d
had a damned long time to dig!

“That’s how we got inside the other night,” William had admitted. “The bridge was
left down but we would be foolish to walk through the front doors of our enemy.”

Bastard was right, and clever too. Tunnels! They could all fight about it later. Right
now he had a way to get his cousins out without discovery. He wanted to shout with
thankfulness. He loved a good fight as much as any other Highlander. But four against
two hundred was hopeless, even for Grants and MacGregors. And William was correct.
While Darach was out recruiting aid, his kin could die.

He was going to get them all out alive. It would have been one of the most perfect
days of his life if Janet hadn’t insisted on coming with them. He wasn’t unsure if
she could take care of herself if they came across a stray solider or two when they
got closer to the castle. He’d seen her quick reflexes. He might have enjoyed her
company, since her smile lingered in his thoughts when he woke up this morn. But so
far, she had done nothing but argue with her brother and admonish him for telling
Darach their grand secret.

“So yer plan,” she asked William now, “is to get the rest of them out and then return
fer our men and attack from behind?”

“That’s correct, Janet,” her brother drawled, beseeching the heavens. “I’ve already
explained it. The duke’s men will not be expecting any opposition from behind them.”

“Hmmm, aye, I remember ye mentioning that already. What I’m still unclear about is
why
?” She shouted the last word and finally managed to anger Darach.

“Now that ye got that oot of yer system, can we have a moment or two of peace from
yer viperous tongue?”

Janet narrowed her eyes on him and forced a tight smile. “I’ll be silent. But first
I want to know why we don’t just let them kill ye all. Ravenglade would be ours.”

“Aye, right after ye took down the army a hundred feet away.”

“Why should we fight fer ye?” she asked him hotly. “If we are to be nothing but servants
to the Grants, why the hell should we fight fer Ravenglade?”

“Fer the last time, ye willna’ be servants.” Darach shot her a dark look, then remembered
why he was at this task in the first place. It may have been Edmund whose passion
for it gave life to their cause, but Darach believed in it, too.

“Ravenglade is only the first thing they will take. The duke and the men with him
wish to sell us all fer a price. And though noblemen like Queensberry and the chancellor
will be collectin’ the gold, ’tis us who will truly have to pay. Our country is aboot
to be taken over by the English. They’ll make decisions aboot our taxes, our duties
and responsibilities to the throne, which will never likely see another Scottish king.
Our land will be taken from us, especially if we own anything of value on it.”

“We’re with ye, Grant,” William promised and cast his sister a chastising look. “They’ll
be no more talk of it.”

Janet’s cool glance caught Darach’s, and damn him if it didn’t make him smile. She
was saucy, and he did like his lasses saucy. She wasn’t the first lass he’d desired,
but she was the first lass he wanted to bed and toss over the nearest cliff.

“What d’ye care about the laws here anyway? ’Tis not like yer kin obey them.”

He could have ignored her—pretended he didn’t hear her. She had mumbled her retort,
after all. “What laws d’ye mean?” he asked, turning to look at her. “The ones that
prohibit the name of a clan from bein’ used or spoken? The ones that ferbid my kin
from fightin’ back, even if they are innocent?”

“I acknowledge that the proscription against the MacGregors is unfair—”

“Ah, ye acknowledge it,” he cut her off momentarily to cast her a mocking smile. “There
is hope fer our species yet.”

She ignored his comment—which curled his lips with something more genuine.

“’Tis inhumane,” she continued. “But the decrees against them are hardly ever exercised.”

His gaze on her hardened and he liked the way it made her square her shoulders, like
she was readying herself to take him on.

“How d’ye know what’s exercised against us? Were ye there every time one of us was
arrested? None ever return. They may no’ hunt us with dogs and brand the faces of
our women anymore, but we are considered the shyt beneath a nobleman’s boots. And
they dinna’ just feel that way aboot us, but aboot all Scots. They will always seek
to subjugate us. Always. If none of us fight back, ’twill nae longer be just the MacGregors
whose rights are robbed from beneath his helpless arse.”

Finally, he’d succeeded in silencing her. He wanted to shout a cheer of victory. But
madly enough, disappointment seized him first. He wanted to tell her about his kin,
about the deeds of men he considered far above any men anywhere else. Camlochlin bred
great warriors, heroes who faced their enemies head-on and left respect and fear in
their wake. He itched to tell her about his grandsire Graham Grant and his heroic
deeds in aid of the Stuart throne. But his grandsire was part of the reason James
Buchanan died. So he suspected she wouldn’t enjoy hearing it.